Certain types of commodity and/or industrial items can be packaged by placing the desired product(s) in a covering material, then applying a closure clip or clips to end portions of the covering material to secure the product(s) therein. For non-flowable piece goods, the piece goods can be held individually in a respective clipped package, or as a group of goods in a single package. The covering material can be any suitable material, typically a casing and/or netting material.
A clip attachment apparatus or “clippers” are well known to those of skill in the art and include those available from Tipper Tie, Inc., of Apex, N.C., including product numbers Z3214, Z3202, and Z3200. The clippers can be configured as double clippers that can concurrently apply two clips to the covering proximate a gathered leading or trailing end portion of the package. One clip defines the first end portion of the next package and the other defines the trailing or second end portion of the package then being closed. A cutting mechanism, typically incorporated in the clipper, sever the two packages before the enclosed package is removed from the clipper. U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,713 describes a double clipper apparatus used to apply two clips to a casing covering. U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,701 proposes a clipper configured to selectively fasten a single clip or two clips simultaneously. The contents of each of these patents are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
To place a sleeve of a selected covering on a chute prior to placement of the chute and covering on a packaging machine, an automated or semi-automated rucker may be employed. This type of process is often described by those of skill in the art as “shirring” or “rucking”. Examples of ruckers are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,924,552; 5,273,481, and 7,775,859, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
As is known to those of skill in the art, deruckers are used to pull lengths of the sleeve off of the chute during operation while reruckers are used to pull lengths of the sleeve upstream or away from the clipper. U.S. Pat. No. 8,371,909 describes exemplary reruckers that may cooperate with deruckers or perform both functions and optionally also act as a brake or cooperate with another component as the brake (e.g., a so-called “skin brake”), the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.